'999? There's a matchstick in my ear'

Thousands of people who dialled 999 last year were refused an ambulance, new figures reveal.

The complaints included a stubbed toe, a man with a matchstick stuck in his ear, and another who kept blowing his nose and thought he had a cold. Callers with more minor complaints like these, which clearly do not require an emergency ambulance, will be given alternative advice on the telephone," a LAS spokesman said.

The policy to weed out trivial calls has eased the workload for ambulance crews, but A&E departments are struggling to cope with ever-increasing demands for treatment. More than 5,000 people a day visited London's casualty departments in 2004 - up six per cent on the previous year.

In another pioneering policy, LAS is about to become the first ambulance service in the country to stop using lights and sirens and going through red lights when responding to lower priority calls. The move, introduced next week, aims to reduce the risk to paramedics and other road users.

The service is also bringing in an "urgent care service" where speciallytrained staff will attend nonlifethreatening calls and where possible treat them in their home instead of taking them to A&E.

Philip Selwood, LAS Deputy Chief Ambulance Officer, said: "Some of our lower-priority patients are the most sick, but crucially they don't necessarily require an emergency ambulance to convey them to A&E.

"The category of response for an older person who has fallen in their home, or a chronically-sick patient in pain, may not be high compared with someone in cardiac arrest, and the best type of care for them isn't necessarily found in A&E."